Brightest star in the sky
by Willowstar23
Summary: AU. When Harry dies in his fifth year he is reincarnated in the past. But they don't need a hero, all they need is a little light to brighten the darkness. Not bwl Harry. Time travel.
1. Lily

**Disclaimer: jkrowling owns Harry potter.**

**~ Lily**

Her poor baby. He was so brave. She had watched him grow from a tiny babe, only a few seconds old, to the weary teenager he was now. It wasn't supposed to like this. It wasn't fair. She wanted to scream and shout about the injustice of it all but there was no one to hear her. She was alone here.

She had wanted to stay, just for a little while to wait for him so that he wasn't alone, so that he wasn't scared. But then he had lived, and that had changed everything.

She'd convinced herself that she was going to stay, just until she was sure he was somewhere safe, and then she would leave. But he hadn't been safe, he'd been taken somewhere that she wouldn't have wished in her worst enemy's.

Beaten and ridiculed from the very moment he crossed the threshold of hell, the only things he had ever felt were hunger pain and fear. Oh her poor, poor broken little boy. The scars that cut the deepest didn't always show on the outside.

She had been so very very angry, but there was nothing she could do. So she had stayed, if only to offer herself the comfort that her little boy wasn't completely alone, even if no one else knew it.

His life had turned out nothing like she had imagined. Even when he was taken to his own world by his own people he had been treated little better. He was only an object to gawp at or as a scapegoat on which to push the blame.

He had tried so hard to make their memories proud by following in their footsteps. But he didn't know that she was _always_ proud. She could never not be. It was part of being a parent, and she had hoped that one day if he had children of his own, he would begin to finally understand that.

She had never wanted him to be like them. She wanted him to live his own life by his own rules and the people that had manipulated him into making those decisions by saying that is what they would have wanted were lucky that she couldn't reach them, because they would have thought the dark lord was tame compared to her.

But now she was watching him and he was watching the stars which in turn looked down at both of them. He looked relaxed. The first time she had seen him so for well over a decade. Even his sleep had been full of hurt and pain.

It was Samhain and she felt a little stronger today, even if only a little bit.

His face didn't change as he stepped closer to the edge of the tower, or as he stepped off of it completely. His face didn't change as he began to fall, the frigid air rushing past, tussling his inky locks. His face didn't change when she rushed up to save him only to have him fall through nonexistent arms. Not even in the silence after his skinny malnourished body hit the hard frozen earth did the peaceful look vanish from his face.

He was free.

And then he was there and he was smiling. The first time in a long time she had smiled at him and he had smiled back.

Now she could leave, hand in hand with her son knowing that no one could hurt him now, not where they were going.

Her not-so-little boy was finally _safe_.


	2. Harry

**~ Harry**

In the weeks and months and years spent in the beyond Harry was, well, _lonely_. It had all been fine at first, he'd met his parents and they had talked, and for the first time in his life he had felt like he was truly loved. But then as time wore on, he'd begun to feel this longing ache.

It had happened mostly when he had looked at his parents and saw the unyielding love that they had for each other, and he began to feel sad.

It had only been a passing emotion at first, but then it grew and grew until he could no longer could stand to be in his their presence. The worse thing though, was the looks of pity they gave him, realising his quandary before even _he _had. It wasn't until later that he had understood what others had said to him, that he'd died too young.

He had died at only fifteen and before he'd even had his first kiss. He had never felt loved by any other person other than his parents and now he craved it. Of course he had always felt cared for by mrs Weasley, but it just wasn't the same. He wanted someone to love him just because they could. Just because they wanted to, not because they were supposed to.

It was this line of thought that had led him to looking down at the world and watching other people live their lives and fall in love over and over again.

His parents seeing their son retreat into himself more and more over time, had gone to do something about it. They were glad that they could see him again and hold him in their arms and finally reunite as a family, but they wanted him to be _happy _and in order for that to happen he needed to actually _live._

And so they had gone to the fates to see if there was anything that could be done.

Destiny had later gone with them to explain the concept of reincarnation to Harry.

"But why are you suggesting this, I'm happy here!" He had shouted angrily.

"You're not Harry." His mother said and sat him down and stroked his hair and told him all about the solution to his loneliness.

"So I won't be _me_, I won't remember you?"

"It's just the way it works Harry. You'll still be you, in here." She said tapping his heart. "But you just won't be Harry potter anymore. you'll be a different version of him, with new memories and a new life."

"But I don't want to forget! Can't you come with me?"

"No Harry it doesn't work like that, besides I'm happy here I don't want to leave, I don't _need_ to. You'll be alright, I promise. We'll watch over you, always. I know you want to remember but if you do you'll always be hanging on to your previous life and you won't be able to move on. It's necessary Harry. We will always love you that will never change. You need to do this not for us, but for yourself. You need to give yourself a chance to be happy."

"But what about Voldemort or any other bad guys. Someone needs to fight them off. If I remember, I can help."

"No Harry, this new world doesn't need a hero, they already have plenty of their own. All they need is a little light to brighten the dark."

Harry leaned back against his chair. This would give him the opportunity to find love and true happiness like he had always wanted but... He looked at his parents, he was going miss them.

"Ok" he said softly.

"Ok?"

"Ok, I'll go."

Lilly rushed over " oh thank you Harry, you aren't going to regret this." She sobbed.

"Were so proud of you son, you're doing the right thing." His dad joined in.

A few moments later Destiny spoke. "We have to go now, it's time to go home."

As he walked over to her he looked over his shoulder at his parents for the last time. He knew he was making the right decision but he wished it didn't hurt so much. It was with that thought that he reached out for Destiny's hand and they faded into nothingness. Harry potter was no more.

A few dimensions over a child was being born. One who had once been called harry potter.


	3. Bellatrix

**~ Bellatrix **

Another year at Hogwarts and as everyone filed in to the great hall, Bellatrix looked from her position near the head of the slytherin table and surveyed the returning students. Not seeing anything out of the ordinary, she looked to the teachers table wondering who their new defence teacher was this year and hoped they were at least halfway competent.

The last teacher, if you could call him that, was scared of his own shadow and had a very strong dose of paranoia. Not that she had anything to do with that of course she thought wryly. No, it definitely wasn't her fault that he just happened to hear hissing noises every time he was alone, or that when he said certain words he felt like thousands of spiders were crawling over his skin. Nope, she definitely had no part what so ever in why he ran out of the school screaming about it being haunted and that he was being stalked by an evil spirit. Dirty half-blood deserved it, defiling the school with his filth.

Spotting a new face she smiled, fresh meat. The man was old, that was obvious by the great many canyons that snaked across his face and his thinning grey hair. She studied him for a few moments before writing him off. His reactions were far to slow to have seen any sort of fighting action, so he probably wasn't going to be teaching them how to duel or fight an opponent and he appeared to be almost completely deaf by the amount of times he had asked McGonagall to speak up until she was nearly shouting at him. Unless he was just in disguise, which she highly doubted he was, he was highly incompetent to teach defence and most likely worse than the last professor.

She sighed. She was glad her uncle had insisted that her great aunt Cassiopeia teach her some dark curses and duelling over the summer to supplement her classes, otherwise she would be left completely unable to defend herself and be at the bottom of her class. Truly Dumbledore was an idiot if he couldn't keep a DADA teacher for more than a year.

If there really _was_ a curse on the position, _surely_ he could name the teaching position _something_ _else_ to negate the curse, or even hire a team of curse breakers to figure it all out. Truly she wondered if all the years of being a filthy muggle-lover had addled his brain in to thinking he was one of the disgusting animals he professed to love, and he had forgot he was magical and things like curses could be easily fixed.

Scanning the head table for the source of her ire she startled when she saw yet another new face at the teachers table. Shaking herself from her shock she searched the table for any teachers that she hadn't yet noticed missing, but didn't notice anything out of the ordinary except for the new defence teacher. McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout, Slughorn, Ogg the grounds keeper and all the others were still there, had Dumbledore opened a new position maybe?

The man in question was young, probably mid to late twenties and had light wavy ash blonde hair that had an unruly look to it. He had an aristocratic face with high cheekbones and a straight regal looking nose that let her know her he was definitely from pure blood stock. That was a relief at least, she would hate to be caught admiring someone of lesser blood than her, what a scandal it would cause if it got out.

Her older sister andromeda was already embarrassing the family by making moon eyes at the mud-blood hufflepuff across the hall. Honestly, was she the only one who had any sort if pride in their pureblood status?

She wondered if it was a new position that he was filling, because she couldn't think of anything else. None of the old teachers had left and there wasn't a need to have more than two teachers per subject. He was very handsome though, so she couldn't really complain.

The only thing that really confused her though were his eyes, which she noted were two different colours. This was strange as magicals didn't have deformities or defects like the muggles had as their magic prevented it. The only possible defect a wizarding child could have was to not be born a wizard at all and be born a useless squib. Hmmm she would just have to wait and see.

She was pulled out of her musing by the headmaster announcing it was time for the sorting. This year her eldest cousin was starting Hogwarts, the heir to the most ancient and noble house of Black. Ha, if aunt Walburga had her way he'd be disowned for all the stunts he'd pulled at various important pure blood parties and events. It was only grandfather Arcturus that was stopping her and if her carried on as he was even grandfather wouldn't be able to save him.

Being a Black meant you were usually at the beginning of the the sorting, so it wasn't really a surprise that after the first two names 'Black, Sirius' was called. She watched the brat saunter up to the stool and gracefully sit down. If there was one pureblood thing Sirius could do, it was his natural ability to do everything with a certain amount of grace that took her years and years of coaching and aunt Walburga's contestant nagging to achieve. It was so unfair!

What was a surprise though as instead of shouting out 'slytherin' as she had assumed it would it shouted out 'griffindor'.

Nobody moved. She hoped this was some sort of prank of his and he was going to jump up and say kidding and walk over to his rightful table. But he didn't. He took off the hat grinned at everybody and strolled over to the griffindor table and sat down with a thud.

How could this happen! What was the little brat thinking getting into griffindor! How dare he! She would have to send a letter to aunt Walburga for this. She'd have a fit! She'd throw him out of the streets, not that he didn't deserve it for pulling a stunt like this. One by one people from the other houses started to clap but everyone in slytherin was staring at her and her sisters. Evil spawn he was going to ruin the Black's reputation! There were already people whispering about it, how they couldn't believe there was a Black not in slytherin. She'd make sure the blood-traitor got what was coming to him.

She watched the rest of the sorting clapping politely when a pure blood was sorted in to slytherin, scowling at the rest, but inside she was seething. People at her table were sniggering at her and her sisters, pointing at them as if they were the laughing stock of the century. She had never been so humiliated in all her life!

She silently fumed her way through dinner cutting up her food angrily waiting until she could leave to go get her revenge on Sirius. She had almost forgot about the new teacher until Dumbledore was at the end of his beginning of term speech.

"Now, I'm sure that most of you will know that professor Dillby had to leave us at the end of last term due to his mental breakdown, but I'm glad to report that he's enjoying his stay in Saint Mungo's and that professor Grindelow will be taking over his post."

There was a polite applause for the new teacher as the old man stood, but nothing more as most knew they'd be rid of him before the year was out.

"Also this year we have another new teacher, so please welcome professor Bohlender from Sweden who is kindly taking over the 'history of magic' post from professor Binns, who finally decided to pass on this summer."

There was silence. No more Binns! A huge roar was let out as students got up out of their seats and started clapping and cheering. "No more Binns, no more Binns!" was a chant coming from the griffindor table.

She wasn't sure what to think about this revelation. On the one hand it was good Binns was being replaced and she might finally get some work done and a halfway decent grade for once. On the other hand though he was an unknown factor and she couldn't be sure that this was a good change or a bad one yet.

He would be no use if he was just another one of Dumbledore's muggle-loving, blood-traitor lackeys. Honesty, people worshipped the man like he was the next coming of merlin. The only thing he'd ever done that was note worthy was prove that a couple of the more dubious laws of transfiguration were false and he gets an order of merlin first class and the position of chief warlock! You would have thought he was the defeater of a crazy terrorist dark lord by the way people clamour around him. It was just one more reason she hated the blood-tutors and mudbloods, they were his biggest supporters.

She'd just have to keep her eyes on this professor Bohlender to see if her was worthy of any sort of attention or mention to her parents. Yes she would just have to wait and see. But first, she had an angry letter to write.


	4. Dumbledore

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry potter.**

Albus sighed, he really did hate his job as headmaster of Hogwarts sometimes. Not only did he have to find a new teacher for defence, but also a new teacher for history of magic. Damn whoever had done that ritual that had sent Binns on.

He took his glasses off and sighed while rubbing his forehead. He suspected that it was Tom who had cursed the defence post and had now banished the ghost. Perhaps he got tired of waiting for him to run out of people to fill the defence post with and so decided to make the history post free aswell.

One thing was for certain, if he thought that filling the defence post was hard, filling the history post was proving next to impossible. He could only curse himself though for that one. He really ought to have made Binns retire and hired a real teacher, but the ghost was happy to continue and it wasn't as if he had to pay him to teach, as ghosts had no need for money. He really as the muggles say 'shot himself in the foot' and now he didn't have a leg to stand on.

His first thought was to ask Bathilda Bagshot to take over, after all she was a well renowned British historian, but then he remembered she was almost as old as he was and was quite enjoying retirement in Godric's Hollow.

So he'd then asked around trying to find someone willing enough and qualified enough to take the job, but he'd been sorely disappointed by the prospects. He knew that the grades for history had been slipping over the last few decades but he hadn't realised how much until now. He'd only had two people apply for the job and neither had even NEWTS in the subject. Feeling disheartened he'd gone to the ministry to look at the NEWT results they had on file there, but he had been surprised at only finding a handful of people who had actually passed with decent grades in the last 30 years and none of them had wanted to take up a career in the subject.

Of course there were other historians in Britain, but they tended to work with the old families, tutoring the children in basic history before they got to Hogwarts and they weren't exactly people he'd want to teach his students, not that he could afford them anyway. Private teachers were paid a fair amount more than public ones.

Resigned he'd made his way back to Hogwarts pondering his conundrum. He supposed he could get rid of the class but he had already gotten rid of lots of the curriculum such as wizard studies (the opposite to muggle studies), politics, business, enchanting and healing he couldn't really get rid of another one.

The idea to look further afield for a teacher hadn't occurred to him until his old friend Nicholas Flamel had mentioned it.

"Surely there's someone you could hire?"

"I'm afraid it seems that is not the case."

"Well what about Salem, Durmstrang and Beauxbatons? Where do they get their teachers from, they have to come from _somewhere_. There are many magic schools in the world and _they_ all have competent history teachers."

He hummed, deep in thought.

"Surely you've considered looking else where in the world and not only thought that if there weren't any qualified teachers in Britain there weren't any qualified teachers _at all_."

He'd left the Flamel's feeling rather reprimanded and had later gone to Europe to visit some old scholars there to see if they could point him in the right direction.

He'd gotten various lists from old colleges with a few names on, and he'd tried to recruit the ones he'd recognised and known where from light families, but had no such luck. He didn't like the feeling of not knowing anything about people he employed to teach in his school and a few on the lists were unknown factors so he'd ignored them. He couldn't risk them being dark after all, who knows what they would teach the children.

"You've tried all of them?" His old friend Gellert had questioned when he'd gone to ask him if he knew of any historians that hadn't already been pointed out to him.

He raised his eyebrows.

"What word gets around you know, the great Albus Dumbledore asking around for historians, people talk. So, you've tried all of them?"

Albus hesitated.

"You know you can't control everything Albus. Sometimes you just have to let these things play out. Not everyone's thinking about turning a load of school children into dark pureblood supriemists." He took a sip of his coffee.

"What exactly are you looking for anyway I've heard you've been asking about for historians but I don't know what you want one for."

"Unfortunately I am in need of a professor to fill the history of magic post."

"Really, I thought you had that awful ghost in it" Gellert exclaimed surprised.

"Yes, I'm sad to report that he finally passed over to the other side but now I'm in need of a replacement."

"So you're looking for a teacher then, not a historian." Gellert stated.

"There's a difference?"

"Of course there is you old fool. A historian is more like a library, they're full of dates and facts but a teacher is something different entirely. A teacher is someone who takes the facts and dates and weaves them in to a story, something you can understand, something you can remember. If you'd of said you were looking for a teacher in the first place we could have saved you a lot of time" he said getting up out of his chair and grabbing the lists off the dresser. "I know exactly the person you want."

"You do ?"

"Of course, you want that one." He said pointing to the name.

It wasn't a name that he'd recognised so he hadn't checked it out, but he had been surprised to find that it was a name that popped up on nearly all of the lists.

_Otto Bohlender_.

"If you want someone to teach, then he's your guy."

"What do you know about him?"

He received a hard stare. "He's not light if that's what you're asking, though he's not dark either. Look just check him out, you never know, you might just end up liking him."

So he had as Gellert said 'checked him out '. What he found though was rather unexpected. He was a young man, only 26 and from Sweden. He'd graduated from Durmstrang with O*'s in both his history OWLs and NEWTs but only managed to get A's or EE's in all his other subjects. This was obviously a man that had a passion for history and excelled at it.

Some more digging had found that he'd got a mastery in the mind arts. Most specifically in the arts of illusion and obliviation. While this was worrying to him, the old Frau that had told him this, had also told him that that was what made him a good teacher, although she wouldn't say any more On the matter. He was curious and he loved good mystery as much as the next person.

Now it was just a waiting game. He'd sent out a letter to Mr. Bohlender asking him to meet with him. It was just whether the boy was interested or not. The young man had actually done some teaching before at his old school for a couple of years and he seemed somewhat a miracle worker. Not one student in all of Durmstrang had achieved below an A in those years he taught. A 100% pass rate would create some much needed positive press for the school. It might help fend off the purebloods a bit. They were still furious he'd cut out some classes and replaced wizarding holidays with muggle ones. Yes Otto Bohlender was just the man for the job.

Two days later he received an owl in reply asking for a meeting in his office for the next day at two o'clock. He was relieved the boy was considering the offer at least, now if only he could get him to accept.

* * *

AN. Please review. This chapter was just more about the new professor so that you know how he became to be at Hogwarts. Next chapter will be Otto himself.


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